Advocacy

Call for Evidence: APPG on Street Children Inquiry into Child Labour

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Street Children is launching an inquiry into child labour. Children in street situations are disproportionately likely to be involved in child labour, including the most dangerous and exploitative forms of work. Estimates have shown that child labour has increased during the pandemic*, despite the Sustainable Development Goals calling for the total eradication of child labour by 2025. This inquiry will attempt to understand what continues to drive children into dangerous and exploitative labour, and what more can be done by the UK government to prevent it.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group is inviting written responses to be submitted in either MS Word or PDF format by 31^st July to appg@streetchildren.org.

Remember

Please ensure that your submission is concise, up to a maximum of 3,000 words.

Please include a brief introduction (up to 250 words) to your organisation or individual expertise on this subject matter, and your reasons for submitting this evidence.

Please be clear which country or countries you are referring to if your submission focuses on specific national contexts.

What will happen to your evidence?

We will read the evidence you submit and use it to help the inquiry. It may be used as part of the evidence sessions and/or as part of a report on the inquiry’s findings. Your evidence will be published and attributed to you or your organisation unless you explicitly state otherwise. Evidence which is published will stay public forever, along with your name or that or your organisation.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Street Children reserves the right to decide how to use the evidence you share, including to decide not to publish it or include it in the report of the inquiry. You will be contacted to be informed how your evidence will be used.

In certain circumstances, your evidence can be anonymised, for example if the information you share reveals personal information about you or your family. If this is the case, please request anonymity when you submit your evidence.

We welcome evidence generated by, and developed with, children and young people. Please make clear in your submissions where evidence has come from children and young people.

What to include

We are interested in the following 5 areas: please format your submission around some or all of these, as relevant to your expertise and experience.

Why is child labour such a persistent and challenging issue, and what are the possible solutions to it? In answering this you might like to consider:
1. Are global efforts to address child labour are being effectively targeted?
2. Is the target to eradicate all child labour by 2025, as per the UN Global Goal, realistic?
What impact has the Covid-19 pandemic had upon the prevalence of child labour?
What specific challenges do small and informal businesses face in tackling child labour, and what more can be done to overcome these?
Case studies: please share information related to specific pieces of work you or your organisation have undertaken on the issue of child labour, child participation, and/or the role of small and informal businesses in child labour.
Do you have any recommendations to the UK Government on its contribution to tackling exploitative child labour?

Wherever possible, please make your recommendations as specific as possible, including particular government departments (e.g., FCDO, BEIS), timeframes, and references to any relevant laws, policies or programmes.

Keep up with the Inquiry’s progress on twitter @APPG_SC.

*Unicef, ‘Child labour increases to 160 million – first increase in two decades’, 09 June 2021.